


Lessons in Shame

by sybarite1



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: BDSM, Bisexual Character, Consensual Kink, Daddy Issues, Dialogue, Humiliation, Implied Sexual Content, Innuendo, Mommy Issues, Multi, OT3, Period-Typical Sexism, Shame, Tropes, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-15
Updated: 2015-09-15
Packaged: 2018-04-20 20:41:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4801571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sybarite1/pseuds/sybarite1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They've played this game before and while it is intended for working on his control, he cannot be sure it is not also for them to work on their torture techniques. Each time they bank the fire in him with a compliment - <em>good boy Illya, so still for us</em> - and then demolish him with their next words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lessons in Shame

**Author's Note:**

> Despite the tags this fic has no sex, no nudity, no kissing and the worst swear word in it is 'damn.' It's basically just Illya's shameporn, if that's even a thing. Sorry.

 

  
"I'm going to say some things and you're going to keep still for me. Keep your hands on the table where I can see them, peril, in case you have sticky fingers like your father."  
  
His hands tremble on the wood.  
  
Solo's fingers are sticky too.  
  
Metaphorically because he is also a doomed thief like Illya's father was, and literally because Solo and Gaby were just busy, right there, right in front of him. Now they're lounging out of reach, watching his face as though they can see when his rage rises like a tide. They've played this game before and while it is intended for working on his control, he cannot be sure it is not also for them to work on their torture techniques. Each time they bank the fire in him with a compliment - _good boy Illya, so still for us_ \- and then demolish him with their next words.  
  
He bites the inside of his cheek until his hands steady, he should be better at this by now. Gaby smiles encouragingly at him and tilts her head like a magpie.  
  
"Tell me Illya, am I as pretty as your mother was?"  
  
He hears himself make a noise low in his throat.  
  
Then Solo begins to speak.

 

* * *

  
Cowboy is doing surveillance from the hotel rooftop. Meanwhile, he and Gaby are posing as newlyweds, making a sweet impression at the sidewalk cafe opposite the hotel. They talk (she smiles more than usual, he doesn’t have to pretend to be smitten and embarrassed about it). Four cups of coffee are put away, and a nice bit of strudel.  
  
Eventually the hands on his father's watch arrange themselves into the time at which they are meant to leave for the rendezvous with Solo. He waves at the waiter for their bill and it is brought on a little tray and placed before him.  
  
"No. Don't give it to him. Give it to me."  
  
Gaby's voice is not loud but it is as clear as a bell. The waiter looks momentarily flustered; young wives do not ordinarily take bills out from under their husband's noses in public. He moves the tray in front of Gaby, who begins opening her handbag and purse for money.  
  
He just sits there watching her, he makes no move to take the bill but exerts all his effort avoiding eye contact with their waiter. He does not want to know what the man must think of him; what the other tables at the cafe must think of him. Probably that he is so unable to provide that he cannot even stand his own woman to coffee. Gaby is a slip of a young woman, a man who looked like Illya should be obviously in control of her and here she is, making it clear that it’s the other way around.  
  
He can feel the dull heat in his cheeks as she places a note onto the tray and smiles her thanks at the waiter, now easily dismissed. His heart beats so fast, surreptitiously watching her smile that cunning smile, knowing that Solo is probably watching this all from his telephoto lens. Maybe he'd even take photos of it.  
  
He swallows and exhales shakily at the thought. She puts her small hand on top of his and catches his eyes. He does not want to hold her gaze because she'll read everything on his face. He does it anyway because it seems to be what she wants. Her eyes are steady. Her hand is cool against his.  
  
"Enjoy it?" She asks him. She is not asking about the coffee. He hates that she would ask - that she wants him not just to take what she throws at him but also to confirm that it is good. As though one humiliation is not enough. But he also loves that she would ask.  
  
"Yes." He confesses. He feels like a mess of contradictions but his blood hums pleasingly.  
  
Her lips quirk, he sees her glance at the rooftop across from them before she covers her line of sight with her sunglasses. She radiates smugness. Solo will definitely have pictures.

 

* * *

  
"Come with me, peril. I want to look at some suits."  
  
"You hardly need new clothes, cowboy."  
  
"On the contrary, I am always in need of fine new things." His gaze lands like touch from clear across the room. He grins that unrepentant grin. "It must be the American in me."  
  
They go to an exclusive boutique for men where Solo seems to know the tailor too well for his liking. Not that he is jealous, Solo is a habitual flirt and he's learnt to tune it out when it happens around them. He watches the American’s light fingers assess the textures of fabrics but turns away when the door jingles behind them.  
  
Gaby steps in from outside, glittering with colour, the sunshine around her like a halo. For a moment she looks like an icon from a church back home; only more beautiful and ready to blaspheme. She is laden with her own parcels but moving lightly enough, as though the bags hold only flimsy bits of clothing. It is an appealing enough thought that he is distracted from Solo coming up alongside him.  
  
"Of course absolutely everything will have to be altered because of the size of him," he is saying.  
  
"It's a good problem to have, Mr Solo," the tailor sounds amused.  
  
He turns to argue. He didn't come here for this.  
  
"Yes," says Gaby simply, "he is a welcome complication."  
  
Solo doesn't speak but looks every inch of him too satisfied.  
  
Sometimes he feels so full of them that he's bursting with it. It could consume him, this thing between them. He half wishes it would.  
  
But still:  
  
"I did not come here to indulge your capitalist self-gratification."  
  
"Yes you did, you just thought I'd be spending money on myself."  
  
Solo looks steadily at him and says, quite clearly, "And believe me, I am."  
  
The tailor covers his laugh with a cough. All told he goes into the fitting room to just get away from the two of them. At least the tailor is professional once they're alone.  
  
Eventually, he is released from the tailor’s ministrations and they are given instructions for when in the week to send for his new suits. While he would normally care quite a lot, he finds that he has no idea what they had picked out for him. He knows Solo dresses well but he hopes he hasn't chosen something at his level of conspicuous. Solo and Gaby make plans for the three of them to leave for lunch.  
  
He doesn't even see a bill but does hear the figure they casually mention to Gaby and Solo. Gaby, for all that she’s a now spy, is also still a chop shop girl from behind the curtain. She inhales sharply at the number but just Solo nods genially like the obscenely, illegally rich man he is. He feels a sharp stab of panic. As the son of an obscenely, illegally rich man who fell from grace, he knows how dangerous it can be to grow accustomed to being spoilt.  
  
Gaby frowns.  
  
"Your face looks like a thundercloud, Illyusha."  
  
He has almost trained himself out of blushing when she calls him that. His mother called him that.  
  
Solo cuts a keen look across at him.  
  
When he was twelve he began to get in a lot of fights. It was just after his- just after. A new friend of his mother's paid for him to go to a therapist. The man she took him to see had an office in the city, dim with a great many framed certificates to stare at while he ignored his questions. Over half a lifetime later and Solo can know him more immediately than that old man could unlock him as a child. No doubt he can see his thoughts right now.  
  
They leave the boutique together, Gaby's arm linked in his, Solo relegated to carrying all her bags, taken from her with a mocking bow.  
  
"Don't worry about it, Illya," he says, slightly more seriously than he normally sounds. "I can take care of myself. And if I can't, you and Gaby are more than capable of taking care of things for me."  
  
He says it like it should be a comfort, _a comfort_ that he would break the law, betray his purpose, for either of them.  
  
Gaby glances up at him and then over at Solo.  
  
"You've made it worse," she scolds.  
  
Cowboy is back to sounding chipper.  
  
"No I haven't, he just doesn't want to admit it."  
  
Damn the man.  
  
"I do not want to talk about it." He says it firmly because they are usually very good at leaving things alone when he asks. He just does not ask very much anymore.  
  
Gaby's eyebrow arches in a way that makes it so clear that Solo is a terrible influence on her.  
  
"Alright," she says. "Let's talk about how, when those suits arrive, we're going to be dressing you every day."  
  
"It's true, peril. We're going to choose everything, right down to your- well." He waggles his eyebrows.  
  
"Won't it be good, Illyusha? To step out of the door and into the world dressed just for us? And wearing so much of Napoleon's money?"  
  
He's biting his lip. The thought is almost too much. This should be illegal. Feeling this way out in public, in streets full of busy people with the sunlight giving him nowhere to hide. He can't-  
  
"Perhaps lunch can wait?" Solo's eyes are glittering with avarice and it's directed right at him. Gaby laughs out loud, unafraid of this crazy thing they're doing to him. With him.  
  
"Please," he says, because he knows how much they love it and he's not above playing dirty to get what he wants as quickly as he can have it.  
  
They miss lunch.

 

* * *

  
  
fin.


End file.
